In somewhat unexpected news, we have an update today regarding a new Aliens vs. Predator title in development at Rebellion.

In a chat with PlayStation World, Rebellion’s Jason Kingsley revealed that the game will feature three separate player classes – Aliens, Marines and, of course, Predators – and each class will have its own selection of special features, bonuses, attacks, etc etc.

In order to solve the obvious balancing issues that are bound to arise from pairing three vastly different gameplay styles, the developers have gone for a ‘rock-paper-scissors’ combat system that should help even out the inevitable plethora of online matches.

In addition to online, there will also be a single-player campaign for all three player classes. The length and content of each campaign is unknown, but Kingsley did let slip some story elements that help give an idea of the game’s tone and setting. The game is set 30 years after the original Aliens (film) and involves a new planet that has recently been colonised by humans. While digging for ‘minerals’, ancient ruins are discovered and, predictably, they find something they wish they hadn’t.

The game is expected sometime in 2010, presumably on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, although no official platforms have yet been announced.

After the recent announcement of Fable 2’s third piece of Xbox Live downloadable content, See the Future, small bits of information have been sporadically released regarding its content.

Recently, the game’s developer Lionhead allowed Microsoft to publish the DLC’s Achievements on Xbox Live for everyone to see. So, to save you the trouble of searching them out yourself, we’ve taken the time to compile a list of the new Achievements, complete with their point value.

There are 250 new points up for grabs – here’s what you have to look forward to!

The Nutcracker 10
Score 25 groin shots, or see another Hero do so.

The Paramour 10
Make love 25 times, or see another Hero do so.

The Concierge 30
Open all the Demon Doors in Albion, or see another Hero do so.

The Visionary 50
Take a look into the future, or see another Hero do so.

The Con Artist 25
Find all 10 of Murgo’s statuettes, or see another Hero do so.

The Howler 10
Scare five people while dressed as a balverine, or see another Hero do so.

The Ghastly Jester 10
Make five people laugh while dressed as a hobbe, or see another Hero do so.

The Repugnant 10
Disgust five people while dressed as a hollow man, or see another Hero do so.

The Gladiator 30
Score a total high score of 20,000 points or more in the Colosseum, or see another Hero do so.

The Multiplicator 20
Achieve a multiplier of 10 or more in the Colosseum, or see another Hero do so.

The Combatant 20
Defeat the necromancer in the Colosseum, or see another Hero do so.

The Fowl Player 10
Dress as a chicken and kick five chickens during the Colosseum battles, or see another Hero do so.

The Colourist 15
Collect the dyes hidden in Murgo’s magical items, or see another Hero do so.

Disney Consumer Products has once again been named the number one licensor in the world by License Global in their annual top 100. Also featured on the list were respective industry giants Warner Bros, Marvel and Nickelodeon.

Last year DCP saw retail sales of over USD 30 billion – a phenomenal figure – achieved through the strong growth of The Hannah Montana franchise (which is likely to have another stellar year due to the feature film released this month), Disney Fairies, Disney Princess, and of course Disney Pixar’s raft of popular titles.

Disney’s results were even more impressive when compared to the company in second place – Iconix Brand Group reached a modest USD 6 billion in retail sales, 24 billion behind Disney, but impressive in its own right.

Warner Brothers also managed USD 6 billion, thanks mainly to the phenomenal performance of The Dark Knight. Marvel made USD 5.7 billion, and Nickelodeon rounded off the top 5 with USD 5.5 billion.

Four of the top 5 licensing companies now own their own games development houses, which shows a strong commitment to the industry – With game sales now outdoing music and film, the games industry may soon become the core focus of the world top licensors.

In more Square Enix news, the Japanese game developer has just announced that the genre-leading Final Fantasy franchise has just reached a global milestone in lifetime sales, amassing a phenomenal 85 million units.

The announcement was made at a recent corporate strategy meeting, where it was also revealed that the Dragon Quest series had sold an incredibly impressive 47 million copies, and Kingdom Hearts (the Disney-Final Fantasy hybrid RPG) had sold 12 million units.

In related news, Square Enix has just completed the takeover of development house Eidos and so now also owns the rights to the incredibly successful Tomb Raider and Hitman franchises, the former of which has sold over 30 million copies; the Hitman series has sold a respectable 8 million units.

The new franchises will boost Square Enix’s already impressive list of IP and give it a much needed grip on the western games market – something it has struggled to do since the success of Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy XIII is due out in Japan later this year, but unfortunately won’t be out on shelves in the west until sometime in 2010. No official date has yet been set.

Earlier this month, Square Enix released the Japanese demo version of their upcoming RPG Final Fantasy XIII. The consensus seems to be that fans were generally pleased with the game’s progress, praising its graphics and improved game play in particular. However, the game’s director Motomu Toriyama has just announced a raft of changes that will be made to the final game, based on player feedback.

A list of the improvements, which have been communicated to a number of Japanese gaming publications, were compiled by a Japanese fan-site and can be seen in full, here (courtesy of 1Up.com).

• Battle difficulty will be greatly increased. In fact, Toriyama expects XIII to be “the most difficult FF ever”.
• In the demo, party members are CPU controlled. In the final, you’ll be able to issue them directives.
• Continuing your “Chain” in the demo isn’t very important in the demo, but will vital in the final.
• The classic FF victory fanfare isn’t present in the demo, but will be in the final.
• Victory poses may be incorporated into the final; the matter is currently under consideration.
• If the first hit of a chain kills an enemy in the demo, your character continues attacking air for the duration of the combo. This will be remedied in the final.
• Snow is barehanded in the demo, but will have weapons available to him in the final.
• Encounters occur solely from the front in the demo, but various encounter styles will be present in the final.
• The final will have a level system.
• The demo only allows you to control one character, but the final will have a new system for managing other party members in battle.
• The final will have command shortcuts.
• Selecting your target in the demo can be a bit of a chore; the final will have a more streamlined targeting mechanism.
• The final will have an “item” command in battle.
• NPC dialogue will be subtitled in the final. In the demo, there is only voice.
• Sazh’s rather bizarre battle animation will be altered to be less strange, and more “jolly”.
• The Time Gauge maxes out at 3 in the demo, but you’ll be able to add more segments in the final through a new character growth system.
• Summons will be present in the final. The mysterious “TP Bonus” that appears after battles in the demo relates to them.
• Finally, the occasional frame rate drops in the demo will be fixed, according to Toriyama.

Talkative and media-friendly Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has dropped some pretty heavy hints about the inevitable Fable 3, stating that it would be “pretty poor” if upcoming Fable II DLC See the Future didn’t relate to the next Fable game in some way.

When asked if the new DLC would have any relevance to future games in the series, Molyneux explained, “Well, while it’s not easy for me to absolutely confirm that, it would be pretty poor to say ‘See the Future’ if it didn’t have some connection, wouldn’t it? It would be kind of, ‘See the Present.’”

If we were doing a piece of DLC, why not use the DLC to say something about the future? Why not? Rather than doing one of those trailer things. Why not?” he added.

Molyneux also ‘hinted’ that fans should be paying attention to Theresa in See the Future. He explained:

“While it’s hard to be specific about it, we do have an idea of what the Albion world is about, and, for the fans that care about the Theresa character, I think she’s a really interesting character, and certainly playing the DLC will tell you more about that world and more about Theresa.”

After several weeks of lower-than-expected sales, Nintendo have finally admitted that their phenomenally successful Wii games console has fallen into an “unhealthy” condition.

Edge Online’s weekly sales report for Japan reveals that the Wii sold below 20,000 units for six consecutive weeks – even dropping close to 15,000 at times. Adding to that the muted success of Wii Music and Animal Crossing: City Folk (neither of which had the sales stamina of Wii Fit or Mario Kart), and it’s clear that Nintendo face their first real test in a region they are used to dominating.

Up until now Nintendo have insisted that the flagging Wii sales were not a long-term concern. However, today, Iwata instigated a change of tune at a press conference, declaring that “the Wii is in the most unhealthy condition since it hit the Japanese market.”

Iwata also added that “A price cut in a difficult economy cannot really excite the market and drive up sales. As of now I really don’t think that a price cut is a good option for us”.

Nintendo has pinned much of its hopes on the upcoming Wii Sports Resort, as well as the Wii Motion Plus controller add-on.

In an unexpected move, Amazon’s US branch has launched an Xbox Live online store, where it’s now possible to purchase download codes for any Xbox Live Arcade games.

Using the new store, gamers can buy codes for their chosen title as well as purchase Xbox Live subscriptions and Microsoft Point cards. This evolutionary measure makes Amazon the first retailer to embrace digital distribution and offer Xbox Live Arcade games directly. Retailers have, on the whole, been hesitant to offer digital games via online retail sites.

Greg Hart, vice president of video games and software at Amazon said:

“PC gamers have enjoyed the convenience of digital downloads on Amazon.com for some time. Now Amazon.com and Microsoft are bringing that same level of convenience to platform gamers by expanding the reach of the Xbox Live digital platform to millions of Amazon customers.

“Points can be used to buy games in the Xbox 360 online Marketplace. The Amazon.com Xbox Live Store works on a code-redemption system where customers who purchase an Xbox Live product will immediately be able to view their Xbox Live code after purchase as well as e-mail that code to themselves or the recipient of the gift.”

Although Lifetime sales figures relating to downloadable tracks are currently unknown, Sony have announced some promising figures from their SingStar-related SingStore - revealing that over 10,000 tracks were downloaded in the week ended April 3rd in the UK alone.

At a reasonable cost of 99p per track, the downloadable songs are a solid revenue stream for Sony, especially when those figures are entirely separate from any revenue earned via game or peripheral accessory sales.

Speaking to game news site Eurogamer, the director of SingStar Dave Ranyard added that over 96,000 user videos have been uploaded to SingStar’s community portal (to date), and that total content viewings reached an impressive 10.7 million. In fact, if you include the uploaded photos taken by users playing the game the total number of content submissions to the SingStore exceeds 160,000.

During the same interview, Ranyard hinted at some potential DLC for the SingStar title that would add new gameplay features. The DLC would be part of the previously announced SingStar Extras expansion.

SingStar is a Sony-exclusive franchise. Microsoft have recently released a competitor product in the form of Lips, which has benefited from an extensive television advertising campaign.